Are you involved in raising awareness / money?

[sibelius]

Last year, I read this amazing article:

http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...ive.ART_ART_12-21-07_A1_DH8RE7Q.html?rfr=nwsl

In short, a priest gave each of his congregants $50 and challenged them, within a certain time frame, to use their "talents" to double the money. At first, most of the congregants thought it was ridiculous, and had no idea how they would succeed, but slowly they began to figure it out. One woman liked to make art, so she invested her $50 in art supplies, and sold jewelry. Another person had an airplane, so he invested his $50 in fuel and runway space, and sold 30-minute rides to people in his community. A musician used the money to record his music, and then sold copies of the CD during fairs at the church. In the end, they more than doubled the money by simply doing what they loved to do, and by working together as a community.

Now that I've had Crohn's for 6 months, I've been thinking, how can I use my own talents and interests to get involved in raising awareness and money for research?

I just finished my third year at music school... because I love music, and I love to perform. So why not organize benefit concerts to raise money/awareness? I don't need to be payed for every concert I play, and I certainly don't plan on making a living from performance anyway. In fact, just a month ago I went to a benefit concert that was organized by my university's student Crohns/Colitis group. I've also been involved in a new "student government" at my music school this past year, and a friend of mine suggested I bring up the idea at our next meeting when school starts again in the fall.

Not everyone need be actively involved in raising awareness/money for research, but I'm curious for those of you who are, how do you do it? Do you go on walks, attend meetings, create your own opportunities, etc?

 

[JTKrol]

Get Your Guts in Gear!

There are a couple of big fund raisers out there. To name a few:

Get Your Guts in Gear A 210 mile bike ride to raise awareness and money. Mandatory fund raising if you ride. I rode in two last year. I'll be riding in the TX ride again this year.

Take Steps A walk to raise awareness and money. No mandatory fund raising. I will be walking in the Austin, TX event.

Get Your Rear in Gear Looks like a mixed walk and run. This isn't specifically for CD/UC, but it's for colon cancer awareness. I don't think I'll be doing this one.

Also, CCFA usually has something once a year to raise money for awareness and research.

There might be a few more in the United States that I missed. Hopefully some others will chime in. Even though there are already some big fund raisers out there, don't let that stop you from starting your own! Get Your Guts in Gear at one point was just one cyclist riding for awareness. Good luck!

 

[RHOV]

I'm doing the Take Steps walk in Seattle on June 7. A few others from this forum are participating too!

I've given some thought about doing something like you mentioned, sibelius; using my talents and passions to do something else. I'm enjoy writing, so I was thinking of making an IBD handbook for teens with Crohn's. At one point I considered making a website like that, but I have no Internet skills, so I scrapped that.

This disease is so complicated that it's hard to explain to others exactly what we go through. It's not just "stomach trouble"; there's also joint pain, fatigue, medication side effects, fevers, and the possibility of surgery, to name just a few. It would be really nice to somehow make everyone else get a bigger picture of what IBD is, and hopefully that would lead to an easier time for people to qualify for disability and miss work/school, etc when they are sick.

Any other ideas??? I need a summer project!

 

[butt-eze]

Great thread Sam! Your idea for raising money via concerts is great. It will surely be profitable. Mike McCready from Pearl Jam participates in an annual concert to raise money for Crohn's & Colitis.

This will be my second year walking in the Take Steps walk. I have currently raised over $4,500!!! My team is all very excited. To help reach this total we have done food competitions (such as a guacamole & salsa competition). We recently had a fundraiser at Applebee's. Applebee's will donate 15% of all proceeds from your fundraising event to the CCFA. At the event I raffled off prizes and sold Got Guts bracelets to raise money.

I love the idea of using your artistic abilities to raise money. I love to decoupage and make frames. Finding a way to sell these items would help. Maybe someone who is computer saavy can find a way for us to sell items that benefit Crohn's & Colitis research...

 

[drew_wymore]

I'm part of Amy's walking group. I also setup ibdbloggers.com for people who want to write about their condition so that the world gets a better understanding of what we all go through.

 

[Colt]

I can't help but think about how extremely misleading and manipulating that story is. $50 didn't buy those things. He gave them $50 and then they turned around and spent at the least an additional $50-$2,000 of their own money. Recording an album costs hundreds of dollars. It's usually around $200 per hour in a studio. Fuel and fees at an airport run into the thousands of dollars. Just to fly a plane for 30 minutes costs at least $200 and the fees are even more.

The $50 didn't allow them to do that. In fact, it really had no impact at all. They paid for it on their own and they probably were already doing that stuff or would have done it without the $50 anyway.

Besides, if you really want to look at it, that pilot had to buy the plane and go through training as well so we're talking about at least 150,000 of his own money was spent on starting a plane tourism business. It wasn't a matter of using talents at all. It was a matter of begging people for donations of their own money and them giving the donations. You can just as easily say that the guy on social security who drops $5 in the collection plate used his oldness talents to earn the money or the trust fund kid who puts in $100 used his amazing birth talent.

Now, I understand why you posted this and I have no problem with that, but I just have a pet peeve for misleading inspirational stories.

- Colt the grouch.

 

[Jeff D.]

For me I have not been involved very much in gaining money for IBD. But I have spread the word to pretty much everyone I am in contact with. I'm also involved in music and am planning on writing a song about my experience with Crohn's but haven't gotten to it yet. I have been thinking of different things I could do to help raise awareness and money and I'm thinking about maybe a benefit concert held at my school. I think it may be a year or so until I am able to do it but I'm going to try.

 

[sibelius]

Recording an album costs hundreds of dollars. It's usually around $200 per hour in a studio.

I don't know about the other projects, but I can record an album for free in my house. My computer has a built-in mic, but I bought a decent set-up a few years ago for a couple hundred. Now, whenever I want, I can record anything and it doesn't cost me anything. Then, to put it on a CD? Buy a pack of 100 CDs for 10 bucks, and burn it on my computer. If a friend of mine wanted to make CDs to raise money for charity and didn't have a set-up of his own, I'd let him use mine for free. I imagine a professional studio might even let someone do it for free, too. As I mentioned before, I went to a Crohn's concert here in town about a month ago, and it was at a well-known venue here that usually charges hundreds of dollars for rental of the building -- but for a charity, the concert house didn't charge a penny.

I think the point of the article isn't "look what you can do with $50", but look what a community of people can do when they use their natural talents and interests to raise money for charity. Most people in the beginning thought they had no way of self-generating charity funds, aside from simply sending a check in the mail or putting some change in a basket -- it was a month of self-realization and community-building, and understanding that there are many ways to be charitable, as much as it was a fundraiser.